Oblivious to the fact that Towel Day was almost upon me, I picked up a copy of The Salmon of Doubt at Chapters the other day. The book is a posthumous collection of Adams’ work; things like short stories, articles he wrote for magazines over the years, and even several chapters of a sequel to the Dirk Gently series he was working on when he died. I’ve read through roughly half of the book, and so far it has been a great way of getting to know the man of Douglas N. Adams, who advanced such concepts as the SEP field (mentioned in a previous post’s comment) and the infinite improbability drive. One part of the book’s foreward really stood out - to me, it perfectly describes Adams’ works and how I feel about them.

Douglas has in common with certain rare artists (Wodehouse again included) the ability to make the beholder feel that he is addressing them and them alone: I think this in part explains the immense strength and fervour of his ‘fan base’, if I can use so revolting a phrase. When you look at Velazquez, listen to Mozart, read Dickens or laugh at Billy Connolly, to take four names at random (it always takes a great deal of time and thought to take names at random for the purposes of argument), you are aware that what they do they do for the world and the results are, of course, magnificent. When you look at Blake, listen to Bach, read Douglas Adams or watch Eddie Izzard perform, you feel you are perhaps the only person in the world who really gets them. Just about everyone else admires them, of course, but no one really connects with them in the way you do. I advance this as a theory. Douglas’s work is not the high art of Bach or the intense personal cosmos of Blake, it goes without saying, but I believe my view holds nonetheless. It’s like falling in love. When an especially peachy Adams turn of phrase or epithet enters the eye and penetrates the brain you want to tap the shoulder of the nearest stranger and share it. The stranger might laugh and seem to enjoy the writing, but you hug to yourself the thought that they didn’t quite understand its force and quality the way you do - just as your friends (thank heavens) don’t also fall in love with the person you are going on and on about to them. - Stephen Fry

I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but it deserves as much mention as it can get. The city of Fredericton has this very forward-thinking setup called the Fred-eZone, which provides free wireless access to most of the downtown area. Care and I just got back from stretching our legs in a park along the waterfront, where I had some problems connecting to the wireless zone. The signal strength was only rated as “Low” however, so I originally assumed that was the problem. We eventually decided to give up and just drive to the nearest Tim’s for a pit stop and some coffee before continuing on. While Carolyn ran in for the goods, I stayed in the car with our feline and thought I’d give it one more shot. Then it dawned on me, that the eZone probably had a feature that many free wireless networks do: a requirement that new users agree to certain stipulations (i.e., that Fredericton isn’t responsible if you lose your internet connection in the middle of an important e-meeting, etc.) before they are allowed to connect. So I fired up Firefox, and sure enough found the short agreement page. I accepted, et voila, I was online! It’s started drizzling out, or I’d be outside while writing this. But still, writing blog entries in the parking lot of a Tim Horton’s while on the road is the epitome of cool, in my humble opinion. To those of you in Halifax, I’ll be in touch in another five hours or so.

Care and I are packing up and heading back east to vacation for the next few weeks, so posting will be predictably sparse during that period. I should have access to an internet connection most of the time, but I’m not so sure about having the energy, opportunity or wherewithall to do much posting. I plan to expend most of my energy towards gaming and poker-playing, if there are any folk around town interested in such things.

From June 29 - July 9, 2006, Montreal is once again hosting its annual Jazz Festival. I picked up a schedule at a Chapters store the other day, just to see if there might be any names in there that I had heard of. I was more than a little surprised at the contents. I suppose I’m a bit of an urban neophyte; the biggest city experience I’ve had before Montreal is Halifax, and while the ‘Fax is a lovely city, it just isn’t on the same scale as cities like Montreal. In the past I’ve made half-hearted attempts at getting out to the Halifax Jazz Festival, mostly just to take in the atmosphere and see what some of the free shows were like. Tracy has even volunteered there in the past, and I have it on her authority that it’s a wonderful time.

(more…)

I was browsing around a website earlier today that offers registration of .ca domain names. I skimmed down through the personal details form, and saw an item I hadn’t seen on any domain registration sites before. At once, the section’s title told me why: it was asking for information specific to CIRA, which limits new registrants for the .ca domain to those that are Canadian citizens, or corporations that operate within Canada, etc. In fact, there is quite a lengthy list of qualifications that makes one eligible to purchase a .ca domain name, as you can see in this screenshot taken from the website in question (links to a larger version):

(more…)